The Turn of a Page

Chapter 33

Chapter 33

            April and May went by, as miserable and rainy as they were; followed closely behind by June and July, much without a fuss but much more merry and warmer and with a lot more sunshine.

            The wolf thing brought about a whole new change to my schedule, not that I ever kept one. I was going out more, though not in the way that a usual teenager does; my trips out were tagging along with Baz to see what any little fuss was about. It was strange to think that he kept this all from me, and eventually I realised that he slipped out at night so as not to disturb me or worry me. There was also the fact that it was very difficult to find a spot to gather in, the school wasn’t always free, as Baz explained one night...

            ‘We are not the only pack who uses it. The head and his pack of teachers and so on claim it as their territory but since we are on it five days a week they can’t really kick us off when we want to meet there. So long as we don’t challenge them or try to invade the forest. You were lucky that Cayleb let you in to find me, and so am I. But as the other packs within the school use it too, there’s kind of a pecking order through the week, in a manner of speaking. But one place we like to visit is the beach.’

            The beach was where we were now. It wasn’t exactly warm but an advantage of a wolf was that our fur was rather thick and we stayed relatively toasty compared to the sea breeze around us. Having sand wedge between your toes however was annoying and the gritty particles didn’t seem to leave even after I paddled my way through the briny waves.

            I had only ever been to the beach once before, in my childhood, so I could recall. It reminded me of summer days, ice cream, sun bathing, sandcastle building and walks along the promenade; human memories compared to the scene that was now in front of me.

            Not all of them were wolves. Some of the girls had brought their bikinis and swim suits to go splashing about in the shallow waters of the sea; the rest, mostly the guys, padded about in the sand chasing each other or slunk about in the dunes behind me trying to catch rabbits. Beside one of the rocky barriers, used as a wave breaker, were my own personal group of friends among this rather large pack. Baz was already sat with them, talking about wolf things and I didn’t want to get too involved with all of that. I sat merrily and content at the top of the little concrete steps and listened to the night and the sounds that pervaded the swishing air around me.

            Without moving my head much, I looked about to see if I could spot anything worthwhile getting involved in. Nothing. Ashley had come over for a few minutes to see if I was feeling alright but I sent her back down to the sand to enjoy herself. I just wanted to sit here and think. There was a feeling inside me that refused to subside and I wanted this time to try and figure out what it was. For all the thinking that one could do in twenty minutes, the only thing I had figured out was that it was some type of yearning. What for I had no idea, so I decided to try and think of wolfish things that I hadn’t been up to lately to see if any of them created a pulse in the twisted ball deep down in the pit of my stomach.

            Evidently, I would have to try harder. I thought of hunting, tracking, howling, play fighting, proper fighting, giving orders (as an Alpha’s mate probably would), frisky frolicking but nothing seemed to create a reaction. Whatever it was, it would just have to wait to be sorted out another day; maybe I could get Baz to help, see if he had ever felt it before.

            Someone had begun howling, I looked over and saw it was one of the wolves right beside the water. After a few seconds, others started joining in; all stood up on all fours and heads turned up to the starry sky above. Before I decided to join in, I looked upwards myself and saw that the moon had edged its way out from behind the thin clouds that dotted the sky. It was a full moon. Though I had always wondered why wolves howled at the moon and whether or not it was a myth, it suddenly dawned on me that it was just because it was so beautiful and it waned away the heaviness of our hearts.